1. Technical Field
The present application relates to a liquid beverage keg filling plant for filling liquid beverage kegs with a beverage having a star wheel device for the feeding and removal of kegs from a linear conveyor to a rotary filling machine, as well as for the return of the kegs to a removal conveyor belt.
2. Background Information
A beverage filling plant for filling beverage containers with a beverage can possibly comprise a beverage filling machine with a plurality of beverage filling positions, each beverage filling position having a beverage filling device for filling beverage containers with a liquid beverage. The filling devices may have an apparatus designed to introduce a predetermined volume of liquid beverage into the interior of beverage containers to a substantially predetermined level of liquid beverage. The apparatus designed to introduce a predetermined flow of liquid beverage further comprises an apparatus that is designed to terminate the filling of the beverage containers upon the liquid beverage reaching the predetermined level in the beverage containers.
Devices of this type are used in container handling machines, for example. The containers are fed upright and in the correctly oriented position to the handling machine on a conveyor belt, whereby the container inlet and outlet are each in the form of a star wheel. The inlet star wheel conveys the containers to the carousel turntable of the machine and the outlet star wheel removes the handled containers from the machine and transports them back onto the removal conveyor belt that runs past said machine.
However, devices of this type can also be used for other cylindrical containers and other machines, for example bottling and labeling machines, inspection and test machines, drum filling machines etc. It is thereby customary to provide a specific set of star wheels for each container diameter.
In the prior art, devices of this type have two coaxial star wheels that are non-rotationally connected to each other, whereby one arm forms a rear stop for the containers to be guided, and located between these two star wheels is a central, coaxial star wheel, of which the arms facing the one, above mentioned arm form a front stop for the containers, and means are provided to rotate the center star wheel with respect to the star wheel pair by such an angle that the device can be adapted to accommodate containers with different diameters.